Submitted by Nabeel Alsalam
By almost any measure, the winter 2001 PRSA frostbite series has been a success. We have sailed 17 weekends, and the season isn't over yet! We took Christmas weekend off to be with our families and were blown out once. Otherwise, we sailed every weekend between November 11th and today. On two of those weekends, the river was frozen solid north of the 14th Street Bridge and sheet ice covered the mud flats, but the cove was fine. OK, I admit the ice was a factor on one weekend. The ice was breaking up and had clumped up into ice floes that the racers could use as picks.
We ran 145 races! Early on, we only had 4 to 6 races a day, but then we wised up. On February 25th we had 16 races! The weather has been beautiful. I remember several times thinking "why are we going in already?" On average we have had 6 boats and 7 sailors on the water. We have had no fewer than 4 sailors and our maximum was 9. Eleven sailors sailed 4 or more times. Another 8 came out 1 to 3 times.
Ben Kuykendall gets the iron man award. He missed the Nov 11 end-of-season frostbite race, but has been out every time since (16). Frank Gallagher and I have been out pretty consistently also (13 and 14 times, respectively). Other regulars include: Ben Forman (10), Drew Hudson (10), and Paul Maher (9). Eric Johnson (6) lives in Montreal but commutes to DC and sails with us whenever he is here. Stan Larmee (4) has joined us recently and has become a regular. Hobie 20 sailor Chris Bolton (4) joins us when he isn't swooshing down black diamond runs-he must be one of those extreme sports kind of guys. Bob Wilbur (4) does both the sailboat and the Laser. Mike Garman (4) joins us from the Fredericksburg area.
I have not accumulated the weekly race results, but I'm guessing that among those who have sailed more than half the time it is Drew Hudson followed by Frank Gallagher or Ben Forman. If we calculate average scores, Eric Johnson and Stan Larmee would be up there as well. However, no one has been invincible. The results are nicely mixed up. Some people are simply more consistent than the rest of us.
If you have a Laser, Byte, Force 5, or other small boat, good news! The frostbiters have been having such a good time that we would like to continue the series into the spring and summer. So starting March 24 we will shift it to Saturdays at noon so that some real die-hards can sail both Saturday AND Sunday. Plus, we can be assured of the availability of the whaler as RC and rescue boat. If you are interested in joining the group, send me an email at Nabeel.Alsalam@verizon.net and I'll keep updated with results and plans.